Dassault Cuts First Metal for Falcon SMS

Dassault has begun cutting metal for its still-under-wraps Falcon super-midsize (SMS) business jet. The first parts reportedly are being manufactured for testing purposes at its Argenteuil factory northwest of Paris.

A cockpit subassembly will be used for bird-strike trials, and leading-edge slats will undergo de-icing tests. In addition, a testbed is being readied for the fuel system.

The SMS–a twinjet with fly-by-wire controls–is understood to be larger than the Falcon 2000 and could therefore be a Falcon 900 replacement. French aviation magazine Air & Cosmos recently suggested the wing will have a straight leading edge, as opposed to the double-swept wings found on in-service Falcons.

Thanks for flagging that. The photo was put into the wrong story, so it shouldn’t have appeared here. It was a photo of the Hawker production line, and it was intended to go with a Hawker Beechcraft story.